


Komorebi

by Fatalfascination (luxillume)



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Halloween collection fic, Mentions of Violence, Minor Character Death, Modern Era, Paranormal, SasuSaku - Freeform, alternate massacre, questionable forensic science
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-08-13 23:23:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16481720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxillume/pseuds/Fatalfascination
Summary: Things get interesting when Sakura moves into the old Uchiha house....





	1. Chapter 1

The large gate creaked on its hinges as the doors swung open, and Ino lowered her oversized shades to peer up at the two-story house at the far end of the driveway. 

"Wow, Forehead." 

Sakura turned to her as she continued up the driveway.

"Can you wait until we're actually there before you judge it?" 

Ino slid her sunglasses back into place and leaned back in the seat, lips pressed tight as they pulled around the semi-circle driveway in front of the house. Ino got out slowly, leaning against the open car door as she tucked her shades into her purse. 

"Oh. Uh..." 

The house was old, to say the least. It had clearly been given a new coat of white paint, but it's age was given away in the stone work and wood accents on the exterior, the grey-tiled roof and the vintage sliding wooden front door. There was a tree by the door with a red sunshade beside it, and beige flagstones leading from the driveway up to the house. 

"It's...old." 

"It's been in one family for a long time," Sakura replied, closing her door and digging in her bag for the keys. "It should be old." 

"You're kidding, right?" Ino said, barely keeping the distaste out of her voice as she followed Sakura. "Does everything work, at least? I’m not sure a house this old is a good starter." 

Sakura stepped inside and flipped on the light so they could both toe off their shoes. 

"You’ll like the interior. There's a lot of renovations." 

Ino sighed and resigned herself to a tour of the house. Sakura had been so excited to find it-large and suspiciously cheap, it was the perfect house for her to set up her private practice, but Ino hadn't realized that it was located on the older west side of Konoha, so far away from her.

Sakura lead her through the house, and while the polished hardwood floors were clearly original but well taken care of, the interior had been upgraded while keeping the classic style. The shoji doors had all been replaced with modern versions, lightly frosted glass in place of the paper, which created large squares of warm muted natural light on the floors and walls. 

"Isn't the lighting great? When I saw it, I immediately thought of how much nicer it would be for patients over the artificial hospital lights." Sakura explained. 

"I mean, you're going to be treating kids, right? Not sure they really care about that," Ino muttered. 

Sakura rolled her eyes and ignored her as she continued to lead her through the house. 

The rooms on the first floor were large and spacious, which were perfect for setting up waiting and exam rooms, the largest of which opened up onto a wooden back porch that spanned the length of the house. The backyard was grassy and had a narrow stream headed by a fountain and flanked by stones that led out to a sitting area beneath a cherry tree before ending in a high wall that wrapped around to meet the front gate. 

Sakura pointed to the small bench beneath the tree. 

"Do you think a gazebo would work out there? I could put lights inside, or maybe on the tree?" 

Ino cocked her head and studied the space, her critical eyes sweeping over the landscaping before she nodded.

"And Camelia, against the wall for sure." 

Sakura could see the wheels spinning in Ino's head as she mentally plotted out all the flowers she should plant, and she led her back inside before her friend tried to sell her the entirety of the Yamanaka’s family flower shop. 

The kitchen was off the back of the house, and the only room with regular doors. The sink and range sat on the back wall under a huge window overlooking the backyard, and there was a second door opening up onto the porch. The appliances were stainless steel and the countertops quartz with pale grey cabinetry and tile backsplash. There was a variable-height chabudai included with the house that sat under modern glass light fixtures. 

"Not so bad, right?" Sakura waved her hand to indicate the entirety of the kitchen. 

"Mmm...I still think it's far," Ino mumbled, as she ran her hand over the finish on the chabudai. "You could get all of this in an apartment closer to the hospital, you know?" 

Sakura sighed. “Come on. There’s some features I think you’ll love upstairs.”

She headed up the stairs off of the front room, the narrow floorboards creaking lightly beneath her feet. Ino followed, and they toured the master bedroom and two additional bedrooms, where the smallest would be easy to turn into her office. There was a newly renovated bathroom as well, done in modern white with warm wooden accents that Ino claimed was the saving grace of the house as she ran her finger along the marble double vanity top and gushed over the extra large freestanding tub and the glass-encased shower. 

The last bedroom, while not as big as the master, was a corner room with a covered balcony through a set of slider doors and a perfect view of the backyard, and the city beyond the back wall. Sakura quickly decided it was going to be her new room and she could turn the Master into a really nice guest room. 

"You got a smoking deal, Forehead." Ino said from the doorway of the master bedroom, an expression of mild confusion on her face. "Why would they do all these renos just to sell it so cheap?" 

Sakura shrugged, crossing her arms and leaning on the doorframe. "I'm guessing it's because of the location. There's not much out this way anymore, and it's been on the market for a really long time." 

Ino frowned. "How long?" 

Sakura tapped her finger against her lips as she tried to recall what the real estate agent had said to her as she'd taken her first tour of the house a month or so ago.

"Eight years." 

"What?! Are you kidding me?" Ino gawked at her, but before she could start berating her for buying what was clearly a problem house somehow, Sakura heard the moving van pull up outside, and the slamming of doors. 

"They're here!" She said as she skipped down the stairs, pointedly ignoring the growing scowl on her friends face. 

******************  
She didn't have a lot of possessions, coming from a one bedroom apartment. There were two movers with the van, and after Sakura went through the house and marked off what each room was with a Post-It note, she left them to handle the furniture while she and Ino started putting the boxes in their correct places to unpack later. 

The movers were done within a couple of hours, and once Sakura had watched the van pass through the gate on the security system cameras, she used the control to lock it behind them. Her cable and internet services weren't scheduled for install until the next day, so Ino turned on the radio while Sakura fished the rice cooker out of one of the three kitchen boxes and started throwing together something to eat.

Halfway through dinner, seated at the chabudai, Sakura noticed Ino picking at her grilled fish with her chopsticks. 

“What’s wrong?” Sakura prompted hesitantly, already steeling herself for an argument. 

Ino dropped her chopsticks with a sigh and flipped her hair back over her shoulder.

“Is this really what you want? You could stay in the city instead of way out here, work at the hospital, meet somebody…?” 

“Ino—“ Sakura interrupted her with an exasperated sigh. “You know my work is the most important thing to me right now. This is the perfect place to start my practice, build my own name instead of just being Tsunade’s student.” 

“Her best student,” Ino snorted with a roll of her eyes. “You already have a name for yourself. What about a family?” 

“Now you sound like my parents, Pig.” Sakura checked her empty cup and got up to get more tea from the glass teapot on the stove. 

“I’m a doctor. I don’t have a lot of time right now for a relationship, and just because you have Sai doesn’t mean I’m missing out.” 

“I didn't say you were missing out,” Ino huffed. “I just...don’t want you to be lonely all the way out here. Your work doesn’t have to be your whole life, either.” 

“I’ll be fine,” Sakura beamed. She brought over the teapot and filled Ino’s cup before sitting back down. “I’ll get the practice going, I’ll be busy, and I’ll be happy.” 

Ino was quiet, her big blue eyes pointedly fixed on her best friend for about a half second before she scooped up her chopsticks. “Fine. But, you know you always can always come stay with us, if you know, this doesn’t work.” 

 

After they’d cleaned the kitchen and done a little more unpacking, Sakura dug around in the bedroom boxes until she located the bedding, pulling out a sheet set and comforter for the spare bedroom as well as for her own bed. She set up Ino's bed first, then made her own before glancing around her new room again.

She was drawn to the sliders, loving the open view. The clouds from earlier had cleared, leaving a clear, bright night with a full moon that cast a soft glow over the entire yard. She glanced down to make sure the lock was engaged, and when she looked back up, movement caught her eye. 

If not for the light of the moon, she probably wouldn't have even seen it, but as she stared down at her yard, she recognized the vague silhouette of a person standing there, staring at the house. She gave a startled gasp at the realization, heart racing against her ribcage. 

They were oddly still, the only movement was what looked like hair or a scarf blowing in the breeze. The longer the seconds ticked by, the more alarmed Sakura became by the stock-still presence. She wasn’t exactly close to any neighbors, and the house was enclosed by the wall and gate. No one should have been in her yard.

"Hey Ino...?" She called, raising her voice to be heard over the radio downstairs, not taking her eyes off the figure. "Someone's in the yard!" 

Sakura heard the radio go silent and Ino's steps on the stairs before her voice sounded from the door. 

"This late? I thought you locked the gate?" Her footsteps got louder as she came closer. "Where?" 

Sakura nodded toward the figure, not willing to take her eyes off them. 

"I did lock it. Right there." 

Ino scanned the yard before turning a finely arched brow on Sakura. 

"What are you talking about?" There was clear confusion in her voice.

Sakura tore her eyes away to glance at Ino's puzzled face. "Oh my god, Pig! Right there! You seriously can't see--" 

She jabbed her finger at the glass, turning back to the yard to find herself pointing to empty air.

The figure was gone. 

The only thing visible was the outline of the rocks lining the stream and the cherry tree. She flipped the lock and yanked the door open, jogging out onto the balcony, looking over the railing at the yard below.

Nothing. 

"But..." She went silent, listening for footsteps on the wooden walkway below, but she was greeted with nothing but the soft thunk of the bamboo fountain tipping into the stream below and fading caws of a crow. "I swear someone was standing there." 

Ino joined her on the balcony and looked around, but Sakura could tell it was just to humor her. 

"Those hospital hours must are getting to you! It’s been a long day, we could probably both use a good night's sleep. We can check for footprints in the morning." 

_________________  
Sakura tossed and turned, unable to sleep. After making sure the gate and all doors and windows were locked and the security system engaged, she and Ino had gone to bed. She was tired, and there was a vague ache in her muscles that told her she'd probably gotten a pretty good workout moving the book boxes with her medical texts around, but sleep would not take her. She got up several times to peer out the sliders again, but whoever had been out there did not reappear, and none of the alarms were triggered. She had locked the gate after the moving van left, and no one would have been able to scale it or the property wall. 

Maybe Ino was right, and the excitement from the day coupled with being in a new, unfamiliar property had gotten to her. 

She rolled onto her side and watched the numbers on her alarm clock tick by for another hour, mind alternating between her patient case files and the figure in the yard until she finally gave up and rose to use the bathroom, throwing the covers back with an exasperated sigh. She glanced at the closed door of the Master bedroom, where she’d set Ino up for the night. Sakura was pretty quiet, but her best friend was a notoriously light sleeper, so she made sure the bathroom door was closed before turning on the light so as to not possibly wake her. When she turned off the light and padded back to her room, Sakura yawned and was almost to her doorway when a creak from the stairs made her stop mid-step. 

She waited, heart pounding and breath suspended.

"Ino?" Her whisper sounded thunderous in the sudden silence."Is that you?" 

She was almost willing to chalk it up to an old house settling, except there was another creak, and another, and Sakura had been up and down the stairs enough earlier in the day to know the boards did not make a sound unless stepped on. 

She glanced back to her room, where a set of kunai given to her by her parents waited in her bedside drawer. She crouched into a low stance, arm drawn back as her fingers curled into her palm, eyes locked on the pale shadows of the stairway.

Time ticked by agonizingly slow- seconds or minutes, she wasn’t sure which- as she remained frozen in the hallway, waiting for another sound or an intruder to show themselves, she only knew that it was until her shoulders ached with holding her fist ready to slam into anyone who dared break in her new home and threaten herself or her friend.

With no further creaking or appearances, she slowly straightened and took several deep, shaky breaths. Sakura had made less noise before and been fussed at by a half-awake Ino, but her door remained closed. 

Old houses made noises that apartments didn't, she reminded herself. Better to not get so jumpy about it. 

When she slowly got back in bed, she slid open the nightstand drawer and set one of the kunai next to her pillow, just in case. She forced herself to recount every muscle in the human body in anatomical order until she finally drifted off to sleep.  
******  
They scoured the yard after breakfast the next day where Sakura saw the figure, but there wasn't a single disturbed blade of grass. Sakura attributed everything to the combination of a new place, stress from opening her own practice and being tired from the move and her hours at the hospital. 

Ino stayed the rest of the day, continuing to help unpack while Sakura dealt with the cable install and offered to stay the night, but Sakura shook her head. The house was hers, she just had to get used to its quirks, and Ino had her own responsibilities with her flower shop to get back to. 

Over the next few weeks, Sakura forgot all about the figure and the noises. Absorbed in getting everything put away and getting most of the downstairs ready to open her practice, it was the last thing on her mind. She had enough of a financial cushion that she could take a few months off to get her practice started, but she remained on call with the hospital, so she often spent half of her time at Konoha General. In the little spare time she had left, she met up with Ino to pick out furniture and decor for the waiting room and ordered the exam table and necessary medical equipment and supplies for her treatment room. 

She would have completely forgotten about it if odd things hadn’t started happening around the house. It started when Sakura arrived home late from a thirty-hour straight shift at the hospital. As the gate rumbled open, in the distance she could see that the lights downstairs in the house were on. She was tired, but she was pretty sure when she’d left that she turned them off. Knowing she may be gone for a long shift when she did get called in, she made it a point to make sure that windows and doors were locked, lights were turned off and the alarm system was engaged. 

She unlocked the door, turned off the alarm, and walked around the house slowly, checking each room. Nothing was out of place, and after completing her inspection, Sakura shook her head. She must have forgotten. She ate a quick dinner and went to bed early. 

She was woken in the middle of the night by a distant thumping noise coming from downstairs. As she grabbed the kunai she had made a routine of leaving out on the nightstand and eased the sheets back, she heard the noise repeat itself, no louder or softer. 

Shhhhhk, thump. 

Three more times, then silence. 

There was no chance of creeping down the stairs and sneaking up on any intruder that had managed to break in without setting off her alarm, so Sakura gritted her teeth and flipped on lights, heading down the stairs with determined steps. When her bare feet touched the smooth wood of the first floor, she took a quick backstep, wishing she’d put her slippers and robe on and reminded herself to check the thermostat, certain she had not left the air conditioner on for it to be so cold. 

“Who’s here?” She demanded loudly. 

Silence met her, and she glanced around only to realize the sound had been the interior doors. She left them all open since she was the only one there and had no need for privacy, but each one was closed. She couldn’t explain it with a draft, she’d left no windows open and the doors were heavy on their tracks. 

She stormed into each one and slammed the doors open, flipping on lights and checking any closets or places a person might hide. 

Nothing. 

After two rounds of the house and one around the outside, she found nothing. 

She double checked the alarm to ensure it was on, and turned off the lights before going back upstairs. She got back in bed, kunai in hand, and laid awake until morning, ears straining for any further strange noises. 

 

The next night, it happened again. Sakura was awake, having taken a long nap during the day to make up for her lack of sleep and was up in the room she’d set up as her office flipping through a book on juvenile idiopathic arthritis when she noticed the atmosphere in the house change. It was hard to say what exactly it as that she felt, but the air became heavier, thicker, and then she heard the first door slide close. 

Slamming the book down on her desk, Sakura ran down the stairs, determined to catch whoever was messing around in her home. As she hit the bottom step, she watched the door to the back room that opened onto the back porch close. She stopped for a moment, listening for footsteps. The old wood floors were in good condition, but the material did not muffle footsteps like carpet, and if someone was walking even barefoot in her house, she should have been able to hear it. 

She heard nothing, and as she approached the door and tried to pull it open with the small handle on the modern door, she was shocked by how cold and slippery the metal was. She yanked her hand back and carefully reached for it again. 

The handle was iced over. 

Sakura drew her hand away, watching as a water droplet slid over the pad of her finger and fell to the floor. 

She took a step away, and then another. Nothing about it made any sense. There was no ice to be seen anywhere else on or around the door, and the ambient air temperature, while colder than she remembered setting the air conditioner for, was definitely not cold enough for ice. 

She checked the other doors, tapping the handles cautiously before finding them at room temperature and easily sliding them open. As she turned back to the frozen door, the same sound came from upstairs. 

Shhhhk, thump. 

Sakura nearly screamed in frustration. There was no way anyone could have gotten up the stairs without her either seeing or hearing. There had been no obvious sounds, and she was in a hallway in clear view of the stairs only a few yards from the first step. 

There was no one upstairs, her logical mind told her, but she’d just heard one of the doors close. 

Taking the steps two at a time, she bolted back up them to find the door to the unused spare bedroom shut. 

“What the hell?!” She questioned to herself out loud, sliding it back open to reveal an empty room.

None of it made sense. She was a logical person and she wracked her brain trying to put together a reasonable explanation for any of the strange occurances. The doors wouldn’t blow shut with a draft, but could the house be tilted? Was there some building code that hadn’t been met? Maybe in the rush to sell the house, the renovations had been rushed and done poorly. That had to be it, maybe that accounted for the cheap cost of the house. She wondered if it was possible that the pre-purchase inspection or the city permit inspector hadn’t caught the issues, and decided to get a contractor out to do another inspection as soon as possible. 

It still didn't explain the icy handle, but Sakura forced herself not to think about that until she had someone look at the house. 

She slept poorly again and woke the next day with a dull headache that she attributed to lack of sleep and stress. She washed aspirin down with a cup of tea and got to work unpacking the rest of her office, filling the bookshelves with her reference texts, medical journals and anatomy models. She finished a little after noon and went down to the kitchen to make herself lunch and then decided to go for a jog. Since moving in had taken up most of her free time, she hadn’t been as diligent about staying in shape, and a jog would definitely help clear her mind. 

It was nearing dusk by the time she got back to the house, lungs burning and legs aching, but definitely feeling better. She decided a nice hot bath in the new tub after her run should definitely help her sleep, so after she finished off some leftovers from lunch, she went upstairs and started the bath while she gathered her towel and some bubble bath Ino had given her as part of her housewarming gift. The room quickly heated up with the full tub, and Sakura quickly stripped out of her clothes and put a toe in to test the temperature, sighing with contentment when she realized she’d gotten it just right. It had been a while since she’d been able to visit an onsen, but this was even better. 

She soaked until her fingers were pruny, then quickly ducked under the water to wet her hair, lathered shampoo into it, and ducked under again to rinse it out. She swept her hands over her face and pushed her hair out of her eyes, then reached for the tub plug and stood to grab the towel she’d laid out. She wrapped it around her and tucked the end in then realized she’d forgotten to grab her robe from her room. 

She took one step back in the bathroom and froze, clutching her robe tighter around her. The temperature had dropped low enough that goosebumps prickled along Sakura’s skin, and the room was eerily quiet. The gurgling of the water draining from the tub was gone, and she’d only been in her room a minute, maybe two at the most while she’d briskly toweled off and thrown her robe on. 

She took another careful step toward the tub, craning her neck to see over the tall side to the bottom. 

The water was halfway drained, and frozen solid. 

Make sure. Make sure you aren’t seeing things, she told herself. 

She grabbed the bar of soap from the soapdish by the sink and tossed it in the tub, where it hit the waterline with a solid thunk and went sliding across the surface. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and Sakura slowly realized that her shaky breaths were visible, streaming out before her. 

The air in the bathroom changed, quickly becoming heavy and oppressive, reminding her of the ozone-rich charge of the air during a lightning storm in the heat of summer, and she slowly turned to the mirror.

There was someone standing behind her. 

Like a picture seen through a foggy lens, her brain only processed minimal details of black hair and dark eyes in a pale face before she screamed and ran. 

She bolted down the stairs and out the front door and only stopped once she’d hit the driveway, and there she stayed, staring at the house as she waited for any sign of the stranger coming after her. The shrill racket of the alarm going off startled her, and then she could hear her phone ringing as the security company called her. She wanted to grab it, but there was no way she was going back in the house and if she didn’t answer, they would automatically call the police. 

She started down toward her gate to wait for them. 

Twenty minutes later, a KPD patrol car pulled up to where Sakura was waiting by the gate, still grasping her robe closed at her throat and shuffling her weight from foot to foot in a mixture of agitation and fear, her eyes darting back to the house every few seconds as the alarm continued to blare. 

The officer stepped out of the car. 

“Are you the owner of the house? I’m Officer Yamato, we got a call from your security company.” 

Sakura nodded. “Yes, I’m Dr. Haruno. There was someone in my upstairs bathroom...a..man. I don’t know if he’s still there, I just ran, but I haven’t seen anyone come out.” 

“Are you alright?” He asked, kindly. 

She nodded again, but her voice was shakier than she would have liked. “I’m fine.” 

She watched his deep-set eyes sweep over her, taking in her wet hair, the robe and her bare dusty feet, before he opened up the back door of the squad car.

“Here. You can have seat and tell me what happened.” 

Sakura climbed in, grateful to be off the rocky dirt, and recounted everything as he drove back up to the house. He asked her for the alarm code and told her to wait in the car. The alarm went silent a few moments later as he disappeared inside. 

Sakura waited for what felt like forever with her eyes glued on her front door as he swept the house and re-emerged, empty-handed.

“It’s safe, Dr. Haruno. I checked everything, and besides the front door, all of your doors are locked.” 

Sakura stared at him for a long moment. That meant if they left, whoever her intruder was would have had to come out the front door, and she’d been watching it the entire time. Which meant, either they were still in the house and by some miracle had managed to hide from the officer, or, they hadn’t been there in the first place. 

“I don’t,” she started to say, then trailed off. “...don’t understand. You checked everywhere?” 

Yamato nodded. “Every room, every closet, the attic. There’s no sign of anyone.” 

She wanted to ask him about the tub of ice, but something stopped her. If he didn’t notice it and find it strange enough to ask about, then she wasn’t going to bring it up since it only left one conclusion: He didn’t notice it because it wasn’t there. 

She took a deep breath and thanked Yamato for checking. He took a report, and told her since he didn’t have another call yet, he would sit outside the gate and watch the property until then. She nodded and headed up the stairs, her feet feeling like concrete blocks as she took each step. From the top of the stairs she could easily see into the open bathroom door and part of the tub. While part of her dreaded stepping near it, the other part of her had to know. She inhaled sharply and made herself march straight up to the tub and look in, where the bar of soap rested against the drain of a completely empty tub. 

 

After she rinsed off the dirt from the driveway in the downstairs bathroom and changed into old sweats and a t-shirt, Sakura lay staring at the ceiling for a long time. She undeniably saw another person behind her in that bathroom, but it didn’t mean they had actually been there. Her medical background told her there were any number of conditions that could cause hallucinations, and while she hadn’t had any head trauma, there was always the possibility of a tumor. There were no other symptoms, no fever or headaches, no seizures, no blurred vision, but her office was full of textbooks of all kinds of cases that presented both very clearly, and not clearly at all. Before falling into an exhausted sleep, she scribbled down a series of diagnostic tests in the notebook she kept on her nightstand. 

The next morning, Sakura drove to Konoha General and found Shizune in her office next to Tsunade’s. As soon as Sakura walked in, Shizune lowered her tea. 

“You look like shit.” She said brightly. 

“Thanks.” Sakura said, plopping down in the chair opposite her desk and sliding the list of tests across to her. 

“What’s this?” Shizune asked, picking it up to scan it. 

“I need to have those done.” 

Shizune lowered it to look at her, her gaze more scrutinizing. 

“Sakura, what’s going on?” 

“Is there any scenario where I don’t have to explain it? Because I’d really rather not right now.” 

Sakura’s eyes slid to the desk, the bookshelves, anywhere but Shizune’s face. She really hadn’t been looking forward to telling her boss’s assistant that she was either medically unfit to practice medicine at the moment or having some sort of unexpected and completely unfounded psychological breakdown. 

Shizune sighed and shook her head as she started filling out lab orders. “You know if there’s anything on the results, I have to tell her.” 

Sakura nodded. “I’ll tell her myself.” 

She spent the rest of her morning going through various tests- X-rays, CAT and MRI scans, and blood work, before ordering lunch for her and Shizune in her office as she waited for the results. 

One by one, they came back without any abnormalities. Her bloodwork was the last to come in, and Sakura scanned it before breathing a sigh of relief. She was, as far as all of her tests were concerned, perfectly healthy. Which left only two conclusions; there was something in the house that was affecting her, or she was having a psychological issue. She was inclined to believe the first, since she experienced no auditory or visual hallucinations anywhere but the house. More determined than ever, Sakura looked up contractors on her phone and scheduled an appointment to have the house inspected again. 

She spent the rest of the day picking up groceries and running errands before returning to the house. By then, she’d turned over every possibility she could think of until she narrowed it down to her first conclusion, that the same thing that was affecting the doors and the air conditioning had to be affecting her. Electromagnetic frequencies were definitely capable of affecting the human body, and if the wiring in the house hadn’t been done correctly, it would explain a lot. 

By the time she had put her groceries away, Sakura had convinced herself that she’d figured out the strange problems and now just had to wait for the contractor to fix it. 

That was, until she walked upstairs to find an ice cold bedroom and the stranger waiting for her.


	2. Chapter 2

She froze, a startled scream lodged in her throat and her heart hammering so hard against her breastbone it hurt. Her eyes darted to the kunai nearby, grateful that she’d decided to leave it out on the nightstand.

There was flood of adrenaline screaming through her veins, pushing her to go, to run, but underneath it was a rising tide of anger at the audacity of someone to come into her home uninvited. The longer she stood there with the unwelcome presence, the more the adrenaline faded and the irritation started to outweigh her fear. She took a decided step and snatched the kunai from it’s spot beside her lamp, holding it poised at heart level. 

The stranger in front of her was a coldly handsome young man who couldn’t have been beyond his early twenties. But something about his sombre expression, the lines under his eyes and his posture aged him beyond that. His long dark hair was slicked back into a ponytail, with some loose bits framing a face made of pale skin, sharp angles and impenetrable dark eyes. 

Something about him wasn’t right, but Sakura couldn’t quite put her finger on it. 

He had not spoken or moved as the seconds ticked on. His body and expression didn’t show the tense stillness of fear or concern over being caught, rather the unnerving composure of one unconcerned with her appearance or his unannounced presence in someone else’s home, as if he’d actually been patiently waiting for her.

That alone had the hair on the back of her neck rising.

Finally, he blinked slowly. “Your weapon is useless.” His voice was low and smooth, but she was still startled at the sudden noise after the strained silence.

Sakura shook her head, keeping her eyes locked on him, unsure if his words were a threat or a dismissal and not liking what either option implied.

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” She growled. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” 

His eyes lowered fractionally to where she held the kunai, her sweat-damp fingers flexing and regripping the handle, before he met her gaze again with that same infuriatingly indecipherable expression.

“My name is Itachi Uchiha,” he said softly, and then more firmly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, “This is the Uchiha house.” 

There was only the slightest change in inflection, but the implication was clear-she was intruding and was not welcome. She narrowed her eyes, teeth clenching against a harsh laugh that bubbled up as the absurdity of the situation hit her. 

“The house is mine now, and—” she stopped mid-sentence as recognition finally clicked into place. “Wait...you were in the yard.” 

“Yes.”

“...And the bathroom.” 

“Yes.” 

“This is ridiculous!” Sakura growled as she shook her head. “I bought it, my name is on the deed and the house belongs to me. Get out!” she yelled, voice raising in volume with each word at her fury in finding out her intruder had been the one terrorizing her and fraying her nerves. 

Itachi’s chin hitched a fragment higher and something dark flashed behind eyes that flared with blood-red irises. He stepped closer to her, radiating an eerie cold that made the hairs on her arms stand up and had absolutely nothing to do with temperature. It was all the warning she needed as she flung the kunai straight for his chest. 

One moment he was there as solidly as she was, and the next he was gone. 

He hadn’t moved, he just _wasn’t there._

Sakura stood frozen, mouth working but no sound coming out for a long time as she stared at the wall where her kunai was lodged, forcing herself to process what she had just undeniably witnessed with her own eyes. He hadn’t run for the sliding glass door, or the windows, or the door. She hadn’t blinked in the time it took her to release the kunai and when it hit the wall, there was nothing she could have possibly missed. She rose up on her tiptoes and craned her neck to see the floor on the other side of the bed, just to make sure he hadn’t dropped to avoid the blade. Nothing.

 _He hadn’t moved._

Sakura slowly approached the kunai and gave a solid tug to retrieve it from the wall. She ran her fingers over the gouge in the wall the kunai had created, reminding herself that she’d thrown it for a reason. There had been someone there to throw it at and she wasn’t crazy. She sighed as she mentally ticked off the items she’d have to pick up from the hardware store to repair the damage. 

Your weapon is useless, he’d warned her. It hadn’t been a threat, or a boast. It had simply been a fact.

After glancing around the room again, she knew there was no way she’d be able to sleep there, if at all. She yanked her pillow and comforter off the bed and headed down the stairs, stopping to glance back at her room every few steps, expecting him to reappear at any moment. She tossed them on the couch and went to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea, digging through the various tins until she found the lavender, hoping it would help calm her nerves. 

As she waited for the tea to steep, she cocked her hip against the kitchen counter and stared out into the backyard through the large window. All the while, repeating to herself that she would hold off on the ridiculous yet inevitable conclusion that some sort of ghost was in her house until the contractors inspection. That sort of thing just didn’t happen outside of fiction, and it certainly did not happen to her. 

When her cup was empty, she set it in the sink and grabbed her keys, phone and purse from where she kept them in the cabinet by the front door and set them on the coffee table by the remote. She’d calmed down, but if there was one more unexplained anything-if the house so much as creaked as it shifted-she was leaving for the night to a hotel or Ino’s without a second thought or a look back. 

Leaving the lights on, she bundled herself into the comforter and stared blankly at the TV until the late night talk shows turned into old infomercials and exhaustion finally pulled her under. 

******************

Her dreams were bizarre, rapidly changing like images on a shuffled deck of cards, some images passing too quickly for her to solidly understand the content before her mind finally settled on one, leaving her standing in her front yard, only the colors were wrong, like a negative photograph. Her skin roiled like boiling water though she felt no pain, and just as she opened her mouth to scream, her body burst into a flock of glossy black crows with pinwheel eyes that spun black and red. 

The shrill caw of the crows changed, replaced by a more mechanical buzzing and Sakura grumbled, reaching out to hit her alarm. When her hand flailed without touching any of her familiar bedroom objects, she cracked open blurry eyes and belatedly remembered that she was on the couch. The buzzing noise rang out again and she struggled to sit up, looking down at her watch with a frown as her sleep-addled brain tried to place the sound before realizing it was the gate buzzer and it should be the contractor she’d scheduled to check the house.

 

She kicked back the comforter and rubbed her eyes as she rose to her feet, nearly stumbling to the control panel. The camera at the gate showed a white van with a rosy-cheeked man leaning out the driver’s window. 

She hit the intercom button. 

“Miss Haruno? I’m Choji, here for the inspection.” 

“Come on up,” she said, as she opened the gate. 

She grabbed her comforter and pillow and ran them back upstairs, pausing for a moment in the doorway to her bedroom, breathing a sigh of relief when the frigid air of the night before still had not returned. She had just enough time to throw her hair in a ponytail and head back downstairs before the doorbell rang. 

Sakura invited him in and was immediately charmed by his warm personality as he introduced himself and made small talk while he prepared for the inspection process. 

“Did you have any specific concerns? The inspections are filed with the county office and it looks like there was a recent clean one done?” Choji said, flipping through some papers he had stuffed on a clipboard.

Sakura nodded. “The air conditioning unit. There seems to be a temperature regulation issue sometimes. And the framing? Can you make sure everything is level? Some of the doors seem a little loose on the tracks.” 

“Sure, no problem.”

Sakura followed him anxiously as he went from room to room, scanning them from top to bottom, opening closets and checking off items on his list. He slid the shoji doors back and forth on their tracks, climbed into the attic space, and crawled under the house to check the foundation. 

He hesitated momentarily at a small crack on the ceiling in the room that would be her waiting room and scribbled a note in the margins of his checklist and moved on. He was thorough, taking extra time to check the HVAC and thermostat, as well as the electrical and flooring.

Clicking off his flashlight and shoving it in his toolbelt, Choji headed back to the front hall. 

“Well, Miss Haruno, everything looks good.” He slid the checklist from the clipboard and handed it to her. “The only thing I noticed was that ceiling crack but it’s not foundational and your joists are fine. Likely just a gap between the drywall panels settling, you can throw some crack sealer from the hardware store on it.” 

Sakura scanned the list and looked up at him. “Nothing wrong with the AC or the doors?” She asked pensively. 

Choji reached up and scratched the back of his neck with a shake of his head. 

“There’s not a single house that doesn’t come up with at least something small during inspections, but given the age of this house, I’m actually impressed at it’s condition. It looks like they updated and took care of everything when they did the remodel.” 

Sakura scanned the list again without really seeing it. She’d been so sure that there was some issue with the house causing the strange things she’d experienced and if the inspector was telling her that wasn’t possible, it left her with only one very unbelievable explanation. 

She inhaled sharply and mentally shook herself, mouth curving into a polite smile as she nodded and set the list down to open her purse.

“Great, I’ll uhm, pick up some sealer.” she said as she got out her wallet and retrieved enough cash to cover the amount scribbled at the bottom of the checklist. “Thank you so much for coming today.” 

“Ah, of course. I always wanted to see the inside of the Uchiha house.” He took another look around, gaze lingering appreciatively on the hardwood floors before he bent to stuff his clipboard into his bag. 

“Shame what happened here,” he mumbled absently. 

Sakura set her purse back on top of the shoe cabinet, brows furrowing as the strange comment finally registered. 

“What do--” She was interrupted by the shrill alert of her pager going off. She dug it out of her bag and scanned the screen before giving Choji an apologetic look. “Ah, I’m sorry, I have to go.” 

Choji nodded with a warm smile as Sakura opened the door for him. “If you ever have any issues with the house, I know some reliable contractors so please don’t hesitate to call,” he said, handing her his card, “have a nice day.” 

Sakura stayed at the door just long enough to watch him toss his bag in his truck before she grabbed her phone and called Shizune’s office. While she could be paged on days that Tsunade wasn’t working, it wasn’t very common and Shizune would be the one to page her. 

“On my way, what is it?” She greeted Shizune as she headed up the stairs to change into fresh clothes. 

Used to her non-greeting and understanding the need to not waste time, Shizune explained that there had been numerous victims from a rollover accident. She spouted off known injuries while Sakura changed and headed back downstairs, grabbing a bottle of water before hanging up with Shizune and heading for the hospital. Her rumbling stomach reminded her that she’d missed breakfast, but there was always the hospital cafeteria and she kept a supply of easy to grab fruit and granola bars in her office. 

As she drove, her thoughts drifted between the house and the hospital, part of her brain already in work mode and the other repeatedly turning over the events of the last few days as she struggled to accept the quite mad conclusion that she was dealing with a ghost in her home. The name he’d spoken kept coming back to her, and she put a quick reminder in her phone to look up Itachi Uchiha when she had a chance, setting an alarm for when she thought she might have a break. Her schedule at the hospital was dictated by Tsunade and her patients, never by the clock, but if she had a few minutes to herself she figured it should be enough time to do a quick Google search. 

As it turned out, her schedule was full and as soon as she had grabbed her coat from it’s peg on the back of her office door, Tsunade had her hanging it back up so she could scrub up to assist with the rollover patients. 

Another team was working on the more critically injured patient, leaving Tsunade with the driver who suffered multiple fractures including the left arm and clavicle. She took a quick look at the xrays hanging in the OR after she scrubbed up and joined the surgical team. 

Her shisou did not allow music in the operating suites like some doctors did, claiming it was too distracting to new doctors and residents, but with everything going on at the house, Sakura still found it uncharacteristically hard to focus, and once they had taken care of the most difficult parts of the procedure, she found her mind drifting more than once to the meeting with the stranger and her recent events. 

_“Sakura.”_

Tsunade’s impatient tone snapped her out of her thoughts to find her mentor frowning at her, one eyebrow lifted, and realized it wasn’t the first time she’d called her name.

“If you’re back with us, I’ll leave you to go ahead and close up.” 

Sakura nodded, cheeks heating with embarrassment under Tsunade’s sharp scrutiny. 

“Yes, Tsunade.” 

Shizune opened the suture packs for her, emptying them onto the tray, and Sakura quickly went through the well-practiced motions of neatly closing the sites as Tsunade left the operating suite to strip off her surgical gear and speak with the family in the waiting room.

Sakura made sure their patients were settled in with clear post-op instructions with the nurses and her rounds with Tsunade’s residents were finished before she headed back for her office and sank into her chair. Her personal phone had been left on her desk and she noticed the notification light blinking blue. When she unlocked the screen, her calendar reminder was displayed with two words that instantly grabbed her attention: Itachi Uchiha. 

Her exhaustion forgotten, she sat up straight and reached for her laptop, fingers drumming on the closed lid in momentary hesitation before she made up her mind. If the name was real, she had a ghost. If it wasn’t, then the only alternative was that despite the extensive round of medical tests and the results of the inspection, she was crazy. 

Neither prospect thrilled her. 

She typed the name in her browser and hit enter. The results were immediate and extensive, and her eyes widened in shock.

The man who’d been in her bedroom stared back at her from the image results suggestion at the top of the page. There were images of him in a police uniform accepting some sort of decorative sword at a ceremony, and of him in a family picture with the same solemn expression he’d shown her, and at a younger age with his arm around a dark-haired girl, smiling. 

Logic said it was impossible to imagine someone so accurately if she’d never even heard of them before, which left her with one conclusion; there was an actual ghost in her house.

While the pictures were jarring enough, it was the search results that shook her the most.

_Murder._

His name was splashed across the headlines on page after page of articles dating back years, all of them spelling out the murder of Konoha Police Department Captain Fugaku Uchiha and his wife by their son, Itachi. The youngest member of the KPD ANBU special forces unit had also killed his best friend and girlfriend before killing himself with the sword he’d been given at a ceremony. He left behind one younger brother who had been out of the house at the time of the murders. 

Sakura clicked on one after another, eyes scanning over the articles with her heart racing and a lump caught in her throat. She thought of the dark look he’d given her during their confrontation in her room, and the idea that she not only had a ghost, but the ghost of a cold-blooded killer who had massacred his own family in her home made her breath stutter and her hands start to shake. 

She slammed the laptop closed and stood up, fear spiking adrenaline through her veins as she looked around helplessly. She had no idea what to do with the newfound information, and no one she could ask without sounding certifiably insane. She pushed her chair back and started pacing the length of her office, brain working furiously to come up with a way to handle the situation. 

She could move, but Ino’s nagging voice in the back of her head reminded her that the house had sat on the market for years before she’d bought it, even with the remodel and all of the upgrades. She wasn’t likely to re-sell it anytime soon, and she didn’t have the money for a mortgage and rent if she moved into even just an apartment in the meantime, let alone another house. The house was hers, and that was that. 

She plopped back down at her desk and opened her laptop again, pulling up a different search, one her sanely logical self would never have surmised she might one day use.

_How to get rid of ghosts_

Fifteen minutes later she had a small list of supplies she needed to pick up and the determination to take her house back. She had an unwanted guest, and he would be leaving, whether he liked it or not. Her limited research told her that he should just be a lingering energy and not able to harm her, and when she thought back to their meeting in her room, she realized that he had not hurt her then, nor had he made any threatening moves toward her. She had thrown the kunai at him, and he’d disappeared. Maybe it was possible he was afraid of her, if ghosts were even capable of true feelings. 

With her supplies list folded neatly and tucked into her purse, Sakura turned her attention to the pile of patient charts that Shizune had left on the corner of her desk, feeling a sense of calm fall over her as her resolution to deal with (and defeat) the problem in her home grew. 

**********

When she arrived home later that evening, she set the bag of supplies she’d picked up from the store down on the kitchen table and laid them out: the can of salt and the bundles of dried sage. She retrieved a small plate from the cabinet to catch any ashes and lit one of the bundles, walking slowly around the kitchen to let the smoke drift up into the corners. 

“You’re not welcome here. You need to leave.” She said loudly. 

She felt kind of silly talking to what seemed like empty air, but she repeated it like a mantra as she walked around the house with the sage stick, waving the bundle around until each room was hazy and the pungent, slightly astringent aroma of the herb filled the house. She spent extra time in the room with the icy handle and the upstairs bedroom just to make sure. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to know if it worked or not, but she hadn’t felt anything in the house since she’d gotten home. She counted it a victory. 

She hummed to herself as she snubbed out the sage stick and grabbed the salt. Per the instructions on the website she’d visited, she poured a line of salt in each windowsill and across each outside doorway, all of the entrances to her home so that everything she’d flushed out wouldn’t be able to come back in. 

She was just putting the salt away when the hair on the back of her neck rose to an unseen static change in the air, sending a shiver through her. Sakura slammed the cabinet shut as she turned around to see Itachi standing in her kitchen. 

Before she could question it, she snapped at him. “You need to leave. This isn’t your home anymore!” She glared at him. “I know what you did and I don’t want you here.” 

Dark, sharp eyes regarded her with an infuriating and unnerving disinterest before his head tilted ever so slightly. 

“What is it you think you know?” he asked. There was something in his tone that warned Sakura to proceed carefully. 

“I know you killed your family,” she retorted, disgust and anger laced in every word. 

His reaction was not what she expected. There was no smug expression, not even the seemingly trademark stoicism she’d gotten from him since he appeared in her room. Instead, those dark eyes shifted away from her, fixing on something she couldn’t see as his jaw clenched, the hands hanging limply at his sides curled into fists, and when his eyes met hers again, there was a marked sadness. 

“That’s the public conclusion.”

She frowned. “...And that’s not what happened?” she asked cautiously, thoroughly confused and not sure if a ghost could become upset about it’s own death. 

“No. I can show you.” 

“What? Show me how?” her brows furrowed in absolute confusion.

He looked thoughtfully at her and she felt the temperature in the room fall. Her skin prickled and her breath streamed out into the air before her. Ghosts pulled energy in the form of heat from their environment, she remembered from one of the websites she'd searched. What was he doing that he needed more energy? Before she could open her mouth to ask him, he appeared next to her, closer than he had ever been before. 

She flinched, expecting biting cold against her skin with his closeness, but instead his proximity brought a strange absence of any sensation, like being in a vacuum. There was no cold or heat, no draft on her skin from the air conditioner, and while she could see her breath in the frigid air, she couldn't feel it against her lips. Even the minute buzz of the refrigerator was gone.

“Look at me.” He instructed firmly, but gently. 

She lifted her eyes to his and met not the endless depths of charcoal she was expecting, but blood-red. There were small dots of onyx in the pool of cardinal that spun slowly, mesmerizingly.

The whole kitchen lurched, as if the ground beneath her shifted. It sent the room spinning, instantly changing shapes and draining the colors from the walls until all that was left was varying shades of black and white with the same red of his eyes. It only lasted flong enough for her to gasp and when it was over she was still in her home, but it wasn't her home at all. 

She looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings, confused, and discovered Itachi was gone. She realized it must have been her house before the renovations. The furniture and decorations were sparse and more traditional, and the doorways she could see from her place in the kitchen were antique shojis, the frosted glass of her current doors replaced with paper. 

The strange lights in the house threw bizarre shadows as she slowly walked around, taking in all of the differences. Her attention was drawn by loud thumps from the room that opened onto the back porch, and suddenly she went from observer to participant, body moving against her will. She was unable to stop or even turn her head as she approached the room. She opened the door and found a masked, hooded figure standing over the slumped over bodies of two adults, a bloodied katana in his gloved hands. There was a third body on the porch through the open back door and she thought she saw a fourth in the yard. 

The next thing she knew, she was fighting the armed figure, her body moving in ways she had no prior knowledge of and the conscious part of her that was still her told her that she must be in Itachi’s place, seeing through his eyes. 

Sakura realized that something was wrong with her body as she fought, she was not as strong as she could be and there was the crushing knowledge that it was information that had been known and hidden for months. Because of the illness, she couldn’t fight like she should have been able to. She was slow, and there was an intense pounding behind her eyes. 

Her vision blurred for a moment, but a moment was all that was needed. 

There was intense panic as she was overpowered and knocked down, and then immense pressure in her abdomen. Sakura looked down at the length of katana protruding from her body and at the bright red stain that started to spread from the wound immediately. She grasped at the hilt but she felt weak, her limbs failing to obey her command to pull it out. In the recesses of the part of her mind that was still her, the doctor in her wanted to scream out to leave it where it was out of instinct, but the words died on her lips as blood bubbled up thick in her throat and poured down her chin instead. 

She stumbled backwards, her body hitting the wall and sliding to the floor. Her heart was beating way too fast trying to compensate for the lost blood volume. Images flashed before her eyes briefly of his parents and of Shisui and Izumi before another swam before her, a younger boy. She saw him carrying the boy piggy-back through quiet streets on a late afternoon, of them at a table with way too much food for just the both of them, on a futon on the porch under a mild summer night's sky. 

There was panic, knowing the boy would be home soon and in desperation to protect him, the body she was in lurched forward, but the damage was too great. A shadow fell over her as she pitched forward and the figure reached up with gloved hands to pull the hood and mask aside, revealing the face of an older man with a hard-set mouth over an x-shaped scar on his chin and stone cold eyes. There was a bandage wrapped around his head and over one eye. 

"Danzo." 

Words were spit at her about how the Uchiha were a scourge to be eliminated and order could now fall into place until the sound became fuzzy and distant, the hateful words distorting in her ears. In the exact moment she was convinced she was going to die, she found herself back in the present world. 

The cardinal-toned dullness disappeared around her, the dark corners again filled with light as the vibrant colors of the present replaced the stark trio of black, white and red. She gasped sharply, her scattered consciousness grasping for the safe solidity of the current time and location as she dropped to her knees and grabbed at her stomach, only to find the sword gone and not a drop of blood anywhere. 

She yanked her shirt up with shaking hands to find only unblemished skin. She wiped at her chin, her fingers coming away without a trace of blood. It had all been an illusion. She scrambled away from Itachi, palms and heels slapping against the floor as she retreated, stopping only when her back hit the cabinets under the sink. 

Sakura felt her stomach roll and pulled herself up off the floor just in time to wretch into the sink. She ran the water until it was ice cold and scooped it in her palm to rinse her mouth before she stuck her face under the faucet, knowing the cold shock to her face would help slow her racing heart. 

“That is the reality.” Itachi said, solemnly.

When she thought she could stand, she turned the water off and gripped the edge of the counter as she carefully straightened and turned to him. She glanced quickly at his eyes, dreading the red depths there but they were gone, replaced with deep charcoal. She should have been terrified at whatever it was he had just done to her but she was so physically and emotionally drained from what she’d experienced that she didn’t have the energy. 

“You said his name. You knew him?” She asked weakly. 

“Danzo Shimura. The Konoha Police Commissioner.” Itachi said. 

“...And you couldn’t fight him because you were sick…” It was both a question and a statement. 

Dimly, she remembered the articles from her search proclaiming Itachi as the youngest ANBU member ever, touting his exceptional intelligence and combat skills. It was the only reason she could fathom that he wouldn't be able to defend himself.

He turned away, shame breaking his cool demeanor.

“I was weak. I was unable to stop him.” 

Sakura closed her eyes against a milder wave of nausea, taking a series of deep, slow breaths until it passed, and when she opened her eyes again Itachi was gone. 

Sakura went straight for the door, grabbing her purse and keys. She did a quick check for her phone and pager with shaky hands before she headed directly to the car without bothering to lock up the house. There was a smart-ass voice in the back of her mind that said anyone who was stupid enough to break in would have to deal with a ghost capable of whatever it was Itachi had just done to her and she wished them luck as she hit Ino’s number in her contacts and drove through her gate. 

Ino picked up on the third ring, and Sakura was overcome with relief at hearing a familiar voice to ground her to the present.

“Piglet? Are you busy?” It was impossible to keep the tremor out of her voice.

“Sakura? What’s wrong?” Ino demanded. 

“Nothing...I just….” Sakura took a breath and made herself calm down. She didn’t need to upset Ino as well. “Can I come over?” 

“Of course. Where are you? Do you need us to come get you?” In the background, she could hear Sai murmuring something, and the voices distorted as Ino must have tucked her phone against her neck to answer him. 

“No, really, I’m good. I’m on my way.” 

Sakura hung up and tossed her phone on top of her purse in the passenger seat. She had time enough on the drive to figure out what she was going to tell them, since she quickly determined she couldn’t tell them the truth of what had just happened to her, let alone the information she’d been shown. She decided she would tell them a half truth, someone tried to break in and the alarm went off and she didn’t feel safe in the house by herself for the night. It was plausible enough, especially since Ino had been there when Sakura thought she saw someone in the yard. 

Ino was waiting for her when she pulled up, arms crossed as she leaned on the open front door frame, silhouetted by the warm light from inside. She grabbed her and pulled her into a hug before holding her at arm's length with a surprisingly strong grip on her shoulders. Critical blue eyes scanned her. 

“Are you sure you’re okay? What’s going on?” 

Sakura tolerated the inspection with a roll of her eyes. “I’m fine! Just...someone tried to break in. The alarm scared them off but I didn’t feel like being there alone right now.” 

She was very careful not to make direct eye contact with Ino when she lied to her. Her best friend was extraordinarily good at sniffing out the truth, almost as if she could read minds, and Sakura was not ready to tell her what had just happened. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready to tell anyone, since she barely believed the experience herself. 

There was a moment where Ino’s eyes filled with dangerous suspicion, and Sakura’s heart thumped hard in her chest, but if Ino knew she was lying, she let it go. She pulled her in the house and sat her on the couch where Sai was watching TV while she went to the kitchen to make some tea. 

“Do you want me to go check everything out?” Sai volunteered. 

He was ex-military and while he was very quiet about his exact job while enlisted, Sakura knew Sai had been through a lot. She was pretty sure he’d never been through a ghost though, and she wasn’t going to expose any of her friends to anyone or anything capable of what Itachi had done to her. It was wrong to think of him as harmless energy. He was capable of altering her perception of reality and there was no telling what else he could do.

Sakura shook her head. “No, really, it’s fine. I’m sorry to barge in here.” 

Ino returned from the kitchen with a tray full of steaming cups, setting it down on the coffee table before trading out Sai’s existing cup and handing one to Sakura. 

“You’re not barging in, Forehead. You’re not going back there tonight either.” 

“Ino —” 

“Do not “Ino” me, Sakura. You’re staying here tonight.” she said firmly. 

Sakura nodded, knowing when to admit defeat and secretly thankful. There was no way she would be able to sleep in the house, and just hearing everyday noises of other living people helped soothe her nerves a bit. Ino got her set up in the guest bedroom and brought her a pair of pajamas and a set of towels. 

Sakura snorted at her. “You don’t have to get fancy for me. You know I know where everything is.” 

Ino stuck her tongue out at her and made some comment about using the coconut body wash not the papaya one because the coconut one smelled the best as she left her to get cleaned up. 

When she got out of the shower, Ino came in with her arms full of clothes that she’d pulled from her own closet that would fit her, and she set them down on the bed next to her. 

“There’s plenty here so you can stay as long as you want, or Sai can go pick up some of your stuff,” she gave Sakura a pointed look. “..and maybe when you’re ready, you can tell me what really happened.” 

Sakura immediately blushed with guilt. Of course Ino had seen right through her. She opened her mouth to try to apologize but Ino held up her hand. 

“When you’re ready.” she repeated quietly before she tossed her hair over her shoulder and gave Sakura a wink. “‘Night, Forehead!” 

“Night, Pig.” 

She spent the next few days at Ino’s and took extra long shifts at the hospital so she would be intruding the least amount possible on her friend. It also kept her busy, which helped her sleep better at night when the thoughts of what she’d seen had her mind racing. She wasn’t sure what to think of it–a murder had happened in her home and the suspect wasn’t who everyone thought it was. That was, if what she’d seen had been true. For all she knew, Itachi could have shown her any version of events he wanted her to see. But the shame on his face, the feelings he’d allowed her to experience when he thought of his family, that had been real. She’d felt that to her very core. 

Even if she could tell someone, who? She had no evidence aside from a vision a ghost had given her on a case that was now years old and considered solved as far as the local authorities were concerned. Not to mention the very person she needed to report was at the heart of where she needed to go for help. 

She also thought of what had happened, the illusion or whatever it was he had placed her under. While she’d felt everything as a sensation, there hadn’t been any of the pain that she knew he’d gone through. It had been scary, but in the end, he hadn’t hurt her and there had been no lasting effects from it. When she really thought about it, he had yet to hurt her, no matter how scary he’d been. She’d been the one to throw the weapon at him at their first encounter. She wouldn’t allow herself to surrender to fear and uncertainty and become a stranger in her own house, not when she'd worked so hard to get it and had such big plans for the clinic there. A week later she made the decision to go home.

As a thank you, she cleaned the condo while Ino and Sai were at work, washed and put away their laundry, and picked up a bottle of Sai's favorite sake and take-out from Ino’s favorite restaurant. She left them in the fridge and put a thank you note on the table. 

She made a point to stop by a flower shop on the other side of town so Ino couldn’t interrogate her about why she was picking up flowers and bought a bouquet of violets, thinking the least she could do was visit the Uchiha plot and tend to their graves. 

The Konoha Cemetery was a massive property toward the outskirts of the city surrounded by a carefully tended hedge of rich green foliage with wrought-iron arches and moderate-sized fountains with Will of Fire centerpieces. 

The largest rectangular land plots were by clan and bordered by three-foot tall fencing, marked by the name across the top of the trellis entrances. Sakura drove around slowly, checking each name as she passed until she found what she was looking for: the Uchiha plot. 

The clan plots were sectioned off by narrow pea gravel paths and Sakura stood just outside the trellis, looking up at the name. She felt a bit like an intruder, visiting an unfamiliar family's plot, but there was a heaviness in her gut when she thought of what had happened and Choji's words echoed in her mind -

 _Shame what happened here._

-and she felt like paying her respects was the least she could do. She weaved her way between the rows, noting with a twinge of sadness that the Uchiha section was a lot fuller than the other clan sections seemed to be. She remembered that the house was owned by several generations and told herself that with a family around for multiple generations, that would be more likely. Many of the markers were clearly older, cracked or weathered by the years so that the names were faded, but she came to a newer looking section where the markers were in black marble with crisp, clean names embossed into the stone and flowers placed in shiny bronze vases. 

She walked slowly, head bowed as she read the names and dates until she finally found what she was looking for: Itachi Uchiha, his marker bare of anything but his name. She glanced at the next marker, the name also familiar. 

Mikoto Uchiha, Beloved Wife and Mother. 

Her eyes continued down the row, drawn to the miniature flag with the Konoha Police Department emblem. Fugaku Uchiha. Shisui Uchiha’s marker was next, a KPD badge also inscribed on his plaque, followed by Izumi Uchiha. 

The realization that they must likely have all been buried together struck Sakura and she took a deep breath against the wave of heartache that made her chest suddenly feel tight. Unable to stop it, the images of them from Itachi’s memory flooded her mind; perched on the end of the lake dock as children, sharing dango. With another dark-eyed boy, throwing shuriken at a wooden target nailed to a tree, carrying a younger boy piggy-back. 

Sakura felt the hot pinprick of tears as her vision blurred, and before she could stop it, her thoughts went to her own family. She imagined their names on the markers, imagined what life would be like if it was her parents lying beneath the cool green grass and the polished headstones. She thought of her father Kizashi and his boisterous belly laughs when he was amused by his own jokes, and her mother Mebukis’ exasperated sighs as she humored her husband. The idea of coming home to find them like Itachi had his parents made her stomach turn as she choked back a sob.

The crunch of footsteps on gravel growing louder alerted her to someone approaching, and she quickly sniffled and wiped at her tears with her sleeves as she turned to see a police officer walking up the path, head down and hands shoved in his pockets. For a moment Sakura thought maybe she'd parked where she wasn't supposed to and he was coming to notify her, but then he looked up and her stomach lurched with recognition as he stopped just a few yards from her at the end of the row. 

The man staring back at her was Itachi Uchiha. From the arch of his eyebrows to the curve of his lips and the sharp jawline, it was positively Itachi Uchiha and he was standing on his own clan plot, alive and well. 

It was impossible, she thought, heart in her throat. It couldn’t be...

“I...Itachi?” She hadn't meant to say it out loud, but the way his dark eyes widened fractionally before narrowing told her it had been loud enough for him to hear her. 

He looked at her with mild confusion that quickly morphed into annoyance, his mouth pulling down in a frown, and the similarity was so striking that she automatically took a half step back.

“Do I know you?” The voice was even similar, low and smooth.

A closer look confirmed he was different from the spirit at her house. His hair was much shorter, nearly blue black in tone compared to Itachi's deep black, framing a slightly rounder face further softened by the lack of Itachi's deep eye lines. It wasn’t him, but at the same time, it was. 

“Uhm, no,” She managed. “I’m doctor Sakura Haruno, “ She searched through her scrambled mind, trying to regain her composure before he deemed her a complete idiot. “I just uhm...bought the Uchiha house a couple weeks ago...” 

He stared at her, his dark eyes taking on a golden hue in the glow from the afternoon sun. Sakura’s cheeks grew hot and her breath caught before she realized she was just standing there with her mouth hanging open, eyes puffy from crying and a bouquet of flowers in her hand. 

“I...” She glanced down at the flowers and nodded toward the markers awkwardly, crouching to put the remaining violets in the bronze vases, “They were for him.” 

“Did you know my brother?” His sharp gaze was still fixed on her, calculating and almost...suspicious. 

Suddenly the resemblance made perfect sense. He wasn’t just any Uchiha, he was Itachi’s younger brother, the only one to have survived the murders. She was struck with disbelief that he would still be in Konoha after surviving something like that, let alone visiting his family’s plot where he would no doubt be reminded of everything that had happened

“You’re his brother,” she breathed, more to herself than him.

The words barely made it past her lips but Sakura could already hear how utterly idiotic they sounded. She blushed furiously, the warmth circling her ears and rapidly spreading to her forehead and neck. 

Sasuke crossed his arms over his chest and rocked back on his heels with a quiet hum, his patience with the pink-haired stranger exhausted.

“Ms. Haruno, if you’ve come to gawk at my brothers grave--” 

Sakura’s eyes widened and she shook her head as she stood up.

“Oh! No! it’s not that at all! I really just wanted to pay my respects.” She glanced back at the bare marker and her voice was a little softer. “I heard he was a great officer.” 

Sasuke’s frown softened in what looked like momentary surprise before he schooled his expression into something so similar to Itachi’s indifference that she nearly smiled. 

“Please excuse me, Uchiha-san. I didn’t mean to intrude.” Sakura gave him a polite bow before she quickly headed back towards the path to her car, the weight of his stare settled heavily between her shoulder blades. 

 

********************

 

The house was quiet when she opened the door, no unexplained lights on that she knew she’d turned off, no sliding of the shoji doors, not even the usual soft settling noises she’d come to expect when the air cycled on and off. Sakura set her keys and purse down in the entryway gently, unwilling to disturb the eerie, heavy silence. Instead of turning on the tv for background noise like she usually did, she went to the kitchen and retrieved some chicken leftovers from the fridge and sat at the table with them in continued quiet before she finally laid her chopsticks down with a sigh. 

“Itachi?” She ventured softly, not sure if she was just talking to herself. 

She had no idea how ghosts worked, if calling him would somehow summon him, and after what he’d done she wasn’t entirely sure being in the same room with him was even a good idea, but after seeing his end, and the barren plaque on his grave marker compared to the rest of his family, she felt a sort of growing pity toward him.

With no response, she chewed her lip and tried again. 

“I...don’t know if you like violets. Or even flowers at all--” she trailed off, looking around, listening for any sign that she wasn’t alone and feeling a little silly. “--but I visited the cemetery and left some for you.” 

She rumpled her napkin and smoothed it flat against the table with a sigh.

“Oh! I met your brother. Can’t say he thought much of me...” A creak from somewhere upstairs drew her attention and the hairs on the back of her arms and neck stood up. 

“You saw Sasuke?” 

Itachi’s voice sounded from behind her and she spun around, jumping out of her chair. He was by the back door, arms crossed over his chest. 

She nodded, mind whirling quickly to process the fact that he had appeared in response to her, even though he hadn’t been present, and what that meant. Was he always around but able to make himself invisible? Could he hear her while he was somewhere else? 

“How is he?” 

She laughed, a little confused. “He’s fine, I guess?I thought he was you, actually.” She laughed, a little confused. “Don’t you talk to him too?” 

Itachi gave a minute shake of his head and Sakura’s smile fell. 

“I’m bound to this property.” 

“Oh. I’m sorry.” 

“You must tell him the truth.” Itachi said. 

Sakura stared at him for a long time, her mouth opening and closing as her mind frantically summoned ideas for how that could even be possible and dismissed them just as quickly. 

It wasn’t like she could just find Sasuke and convince him to accept an invite to his family’s murder home to talk to his dead brother, and the thought of even doing so made her stomach turn. If her name was dragged into things, she definitely did not want to become someone Danzo Shimura knew anything about. 

Sakura shook her head vehemently, her pink strands flying around her face. “Ahh, no. That’s not happening. Do you even understand how crazy that sounds? I have no evidence and I certainly can’t tell him I know because his brother’s ghost told me!” 

She grabbed her plate off the table and took it to the sink, rinsing it more vigorously than necessary and placing it in the dishwasher. At his continued silence, Sakura turned her head so she could look at him over her shoulder. 

“I’m sorry. I really am, but it’s just not possible.” She said, softly. 

She wiped around the edges of the sink with the towel that hung from the dishwasher handle and steeled herself for the argument she was sure was coming, but he remained silent. 

When she finally turned to face him, curious and concerned about the lack of response to her refusal, her blood ran cold. 

The change to his face was minute, but it was like night and day. Where before he had been indifferent, with a slight tilt of his head he radiated a kind of lethal menace she’d never seen before and it hit her like a physical force, driving her to step back. 

“I..Itachi?” 

Thick lashes lowered over dark eyes and when he opened them again, she took another step back with a gasp as red bored into her. She jerked her gaze away, determined not to make the mistake of meeting that scarlet glare ever again. 

The air pressure in the room changed and the unexpected popping of her ears startled her into looking up...only to find him gone. She let out a shuddering breath as she willed her heart to stop pounding and her nerves to settle. She waited a few minutes to see if he would reappear, or for the colors of the room to shift again and when nothing happened, she turned off the light in the kitchen and headed toward the living room, figuring a few minutes of some mindless TV would help her relax for a while. 

She took two steps down the hallway, and the entire house began to shake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please give a round of applause to my beta @the_dark_becomes_you for making this bearable for all of you. :) 
> 
> I'm sorry this update took a while- I definitely didn't mean to leave you guys with a cliffhanger for this long! If you're still reading, ILY and thank you! 
> 
> Comments are life ( they seriously kept me motivated when I started to lose it) and you can find me on tumblr as @fatalfascination

**Author's Note:**

> beta'd by the lovely the_dark_becomes_you. -tags and characters will change as they are added. 
> 
> This is my first work for the SasuSaku ship...I hope you guys like it. Comments are LIFE, or you can come talk to me over at tumblr @fatalfascination


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